Fujimoto, Yukihiro; Nagasawa, Tomoaki; Ohya, Satoshi; Sakamoto, Makoto Phase structure of gauge theories on an interval. (English) Zbl 1242.81110 Prog. Theor. Phys. 126, No. 5, 841-854 (2011). Summary: We discuss gauge symmetry breaking in a general framework of gauge theories on an interval. We first derive a possible set of boundary conditions for a scalar field, which are compatible with several consistency requirements. It is shown that with these boundary conditions the scalar field can acquire a nontrivial vacuum expectation value even if the scalar mass square is positive. Any nonvanishing vacuum expectation value cannot be a constant but, in general, depends on the extra dimensional coordinate of the interval. The phase diagram of broken/unbroken gauge symmetry possesses a rich structure in the parameter space of the length of the interval, the scalar mass and the boundary conditions. We also discuss 4d chiral fermions and fermion mass hierarchies in our gauge symmetry breaking scenario. Cited in 2 Documents MSC: 81T13 Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{Y. Fujimoto} et al., Prog. Theor. Phys. 126, No. 5, 841--854 (2011; Zbl 1242.81110) Full Text: DOI arXiv